Top Asian News 3:38 a.m. GMT

Who is Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate who’ll head Bangladesh’s interim government?

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus has been chosen to head Bangladesh’s interim government after the nation’s longtime prime minister resigned and fled abroad in the face of a broad uprising against her rule. Known as the “banker to the poorest of the poor” and a longtime critic of the ousted Sheikh Hasina, Yunus will act as a caretaker premier until new elections are held. The decision followed a meeting late Tuesday that included student protest leaders, military chiefs, civil society members and business leaders. Hasina was forced to flee Monday after weeks of protests over a quota system for allocating government jobs turned into a broader challenge to her 15-year rule, which was marked by a rising economy but an increasingly authoritarian streak.

Nobel laureate Yunus will head Bangladesh’s interim government after unrest ousted Hasina

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus will head Bangladesh’s interim government after longtime Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled the country amid a mass uprising that left hundreds of people dead and pushed the South Asian nation to the brink of chaos. The decision, announced early Wednesday by Joynal Abedin, the press secretary of the country’s figurehead President Mohammed Shahabuddin, came during a meeting that included military chiefs, organizers of the student protests that helped drive Hasina from power, prominent business leaders and civil society members. A longtime political opponent of Hasina, Yunus is expected to return soon from Paris, where he is advising Olympic organizers, media reports said.

How a student-run uprising led to the ouster of Bangladesh’s longest-serving prime minister

NEW DELHI (AP) — In a video that lit up social media feeds in Bangladesh, jubilant protesters climbed atop a statue of Sheikh Mujib Rahman, the country’s first leader after independence, and beat it with iron rods and axes as people below hooted and cheered. Crowds across the nation have attacked symbols of Rahman, as they sought to literally dismantle his legacy and that of his daughter, Sheikh Hasina, the country’s prime minister until Monday when she resigned and fled in the face of the unrest. The anger that pushed Hasina from power — and that is behind the drive to erase her and her family — is rooted in deep economic distress felt by the majority of people in Bangladesh, as well as the perception that while they suffered, the elites aligned with Hasina prospered, analysts said.

Australian state orders public servants to stop remote working after a newspaper campaign against it

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — The government of Australia’s most populous state ordered all public employees to work from their offices by default beginning Tuesday and urged stricter limits on remote work, after news outlets provoked a fraught debate about work-from-home habits established during the pandemic. Chris Minns, the New South Wales premier, said in a notice to agencies Monday that jobs could be made flexible by means other than remote working, such as part-time positions and role sharing, and that “building and replenishing public institutions” required “being physically present.” His remarks were welcomed by business and real estate groups in the state’s largest city, Sydney, who have decried falling office occupancy rates since 2020, but denounced by unions, who pledged to challenge the initiative if it was invoked unnecessarily.

Weak spots in metal may have led to fatal Osprey crash off Japan, documents obtained by AP reveal

WASHINGTON (AP) — A gear crack that led to a fatal crash of a V-22 Osprey last year may have been started by weak spots in a metal used to manufacture that part, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. The November crash killed eight Air Force Special Operations Command service members. It was the second time in less than two years that a catastrophic failure of a part of the Osprey’s proprotor gearbox, which serves as its transmission, caused a fatal accident. In June of 2022, five Marines were killed when a different part of the proprotor gearbox system failed.

Hiroshima governor says nuclear disarmament must be tackled as a pressing issue, not an ideal

TOKYO (AP) — Hiroshima officials urged world leaders Tuesday to stop relying on nuclear weapons as deterrence and take immediate action toward abolishment — not as an ideal, but to remove the risk of atomic war amid conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East and rising tensions in East Asia. They commented as Hiroshima remembered its atomic bombing 79 years ago at the end of World War II. The memorial comes days after Japan and the U.S. reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to “extended deterrence,” which includes atomic weapons, to protect its Asian ally. That is a shift from Japan’s past reluctance to openly discuss the sensitive issue as the world’s only country to have suffered atomic attacks.

Thailand’s progressive Move Forward party might be dissolved, but its former chief remains hopeful

BANGKOK (AP) — The charismatic Thai politician who led his young, progressive party to a stunning general election victory a year ago is urging supporters not to lose hope, even if the party is disbanded by a legal order. Thailand’s Constitutional Court will rule Wednesday on whether the Move Forward Party violated the constitution by proposing to amend a law that forbids defaming the country’s royal family. A petition to the court requested the party’s dissolution and a 10-year ban on political activity by its executives, including former chief Pita Limjaroenrat. Move Forward won the most seats in the 2023 election, but was blocked from taking power and now heads the opposition.

Man known as pro-democracy activist convicted in US of giving China intel on dissidents

NEW YORK (AP) — A Chinese American scholar was convicted Tuesday of U.S. charges of using his reputation as a pro-democracy activist to gather information on dissidents and feed it to his homeland’s government. A federal jury in New York delivered the verdict in the case of Shujun Wang, who helped found a pro-democracy group in the city. Prosecutors said that at the behest of China’s main intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security, Wang lived a double life for over a decade. He held himself out as a critic of the Chinese government so that he could build rapport with people who actually opposed it, then betrayed their trust by telling Beijing what they said and planned, prosecutors said.

More than 120 people died in Tokyo from heatstroke in July as average temperatures hit record highs

TOKYO (AP) — More than 120 people died of heatstroke in the Tokyo metropolitan area in July, when the nation’s average temperature hit record highs and heat warnings were in effect much of the month, Japanese authorities said Tuesday. According to the Tokyo Medical Examiner’s Office, many of the 123 people who died were elderly. All but two were found dead indoors, and most were not using air conditioners despite having them installed. Japanese health authorities and weather forecasters repeatedly advised people to stay indoors, consume ample liquids to avoid dehydration and use air conditioning, because elderly people often think that air conditioning is not good for one’s health and tend to avoid using it.

Fossils suggest even smaller ‘hobbits’ roamed an Indonesian island 700,000 years ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Twenty years ago on an Indonesian island, scientists discovered fossils of an early human species that stood at about 3 1/2 feet (1.07 meters) tall — earning them the nickname “hobbits.” Now a new study suggests ancestors of the hobbits were even slightly shorter. “We did not expect that we would find smaller individuals from such an old site,” study co-author Yousuke Kaifu of the University of Tokyo said in an email. The original hobbit fossils — named by the discoverers after characters in “The Lord of the Rings” — date back to between 60,000 and 100,000 years ago.